Medicine

On this edition of ST, we speak with Karen M. Masterson, a journalist turned malaria researcher, whose new book is "The Malaria Project: The U.S. Government's Secret Mission to Find a Miracle Cure." It's a remarkable and sometimes unsettling story of science, medicine, and war -- at once illuminating and surprising, the book also explores the ethical perils of seeking treatments for disease while ignoring the human condition.

On this edition of ST, we speak with Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, who served several years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman from Rhode Island, and who is best known as the author and lead sponsor of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. This landmark piece of legislation provides tens of millions of Americans (who were previously denied care) with access to mental health treatment. Today, Rep.

On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, guest host John Schumann speaks by phone with Dr. David Schiedermayer, a reflective and soft-spoken physician/author who is based in Wisconsin, tells a good yarn, and has worked in the fields of medicine and health for many years now. He's been an internist and a hospitalist in the past, and he's now focused on palliative care. Oh, and he's also one heck of a harmonica player. In fact, Dr.

Dr. David Casarett is a physician, researcher, and tenured associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He's a long-practicing and widely published palliative care expert -- and also the author of an entertaining and well-written new general-audience book, "Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead." As a critic for The New York Times has recently noted, this book is "a comprehensive review of the fascinating science of resuscitation.... A specialist in end-of-life care at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr.

We at StudioTulsa have been enjoying some much-cherished vacation time these past two weeks -- and hopefully you, dear listeners, have likewise enjoyed our Encore Presentations of ST for the weeks of August 4th and August 11th. If you'd like to listen to any of these past programs, you'll find audio-stream buttons for them at the following links.

Buying local and frequenting farmers' markets continue to be very popular pursuits, and for obvious reasons. But what's the best strategy for navigating the produce section of your average supermarket? Our guest on ST is Jo Robinson, an investigative journalist who lives (and often "grows her own") on Vashon Island, Washington, and who specializes in science and health.

On this edition of our show, we offer an interesting how-does-society-affect-our-mental-health discussion with Joel Gold, who, with his brother Ian, is one of the authors of "Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness -- The Truman Show Delusion and Other Strange Beliefs." Dr. Joel Gold is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and was an attending psychiatrist in the department of psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital Center for nine years.

On this installment of ST on Health, guest host John Schumann speaks with Lauren Silverman, the Health, Science, and Technology reporter at KERA, which is the NPR member-station in Dallas. Silverman is one of the creators of a newly posted, impressively researched, and decidedly multi-media "digital storytelling project" at the KERA website that focuses on hip fractures among the elderly, in both the Greater Dallas region and the United States more generally.

On this edition of ST on Health, we learn about Narcan, a/k/a Naloxone, which is a well-known and widely used opioid antagonist --- meaning, it's a drug that works to quickly block the effects of heroin, morphine, and similar opiates/sedatives. Narcan is thus administered in many instances where a person is experiencing (or has just recently experienced) a drug overdose; in this way, Narcan, which was originally developed in the 1960s, is thought to have saved some 50,000 lives nationally.

On this edition of ST on Health, guest host John Schumann speaks with Tracy Davenport, a self-described "health care coordinator" --- basically, this means she's a freelance case manager who works to help patients and/or their families navigate today's ever-more-complicated medical system. It's often about being a good listener and asking lots of questions, says Davenport, who's had many years of experience as a registered nurse.

On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, we speak with Dr. Barron H. Lerner, a Professor of Medicine and Population Health at the New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Lerner is also an award-winning and quite prolific writer on the related subjects of medicine, medical history, medical ethics, and medicine and society.

From Sherwin Nuland and Abraham Verghese to William Carlos Williams and Robert Coles --- from Siddhartha Mukherjee to Atul Gawande --- there's a long and noble tradition in American writing of gifted authors and journalists who also work professionally as physicians. On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, we hear from such a writer, Dr. John Elefteriades, who's the Glenn Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Director of the Aortic Institute at Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital. Dr.

On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, we hear from two doctors who are both highly accomplished and longtime advocates of public health, which has been defined as (per Wikipedia) "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations public and private, communities, and individuals." The health of a given culture or society, in other words, rather than any one individual's health or well-being.

On Thursday and Friday of this week, the TU Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will mark its 25th anniversary with a symposium here on campus regarding the moral and ethical issues involved in human medical research. The event is entitled "Protecting Human Subjects from Harm: Traversing the Moral & Legal Boundaries of Biomedical Research" and is described in detail at this link. Our guest on ST is the scholar who'll give the keynote address at this event: Dr.

(Please note: This show originally aired in September of last year.) As we grow older, of course, our bodies become less capable --- and less reliable --- when it comes to doing all the things we used to do. But as our guest reports on ST today, one of the very exciting findings in recent medical research is that the human brain can actually grow (and get stronger) over time --- and a bigger brain means better memory, increased creativity, sharper concentration skills, and a more rapid speed of learning. Our guest is Dr.

On this edition of The Best of StudioTulsa, we revisit our discussion with Katy Butler, an accomplished journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Essays, and The Best Buddhist Writing.

On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, guest host John Henning Schumann speaks with Michael M. Phillips, a staff reporter at the Washington, D.C., bureau of The Wall Street Journal. Phillips has reported on the U.S. ground war in Afghanistan since 2001, and he went to Iraq to cover a certain American battalion several times between 2003 and 2006. He writes often about the aftermath of these wars, including post-traumatic stress, suicide, and other issues facing veterans and their families.

On today's edition of StudioTulsa on Health, we welcome Chase Curtiss, the CEO and founder of Sway Medical, a Tulsa-based software company that is focused on, per its website, "reinventing the way medical outcomes are measured.

Everyone knows, as even President Obama himself has recently admitted, that the arrival of the Affordable Care Act has been, frankly, a disaster. So far, anyway. But what happens next? And more precisely, what happens next in our neck of the woods?

On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, guest host John Henning Schumann speaks Dr. Suzanne Koven, who practices internal medicine Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and who also writes the "In Practice" column for The Boston Globe. Earlier this month, Dr.

On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, guest host John Henning Schumann speaks with Dr. Jack Sommers, chief medical officer for CommunityCare, the Tulsa-based medical insurance firm that's owned and operated by Saint Francis Hospital and St. John Medical Center. (This company began as CommunityCare HMO in 1993; you can read a full history for CommunityCare here.) In an interesting and wide-ranging discussion, Dr.

On our show today, an inspiring conversation with Dr. Amanda Madrid, who works in the remote and dangerous mountains and jungles of Eastern Honduras as a medical officer, a public health consultant, and the director of an international holistic Christian organization called Predisan, which is a ministry as well as a network of health clinics. Dr. Madrid is also the subject of a new book, "Lay Down Your Guns: One Doctor's Battle for Hope and Healing in Honduras," written by Greg R.

As we grow older, of course, our bodies become less and less capable --- and less reliable --- when it comes to doing all the things we used to do. But as our guest reports on ST today, one of the very exciting findings in recent medical research is that the human brain can actually grow (and get stronger) over time --- and a bigger brain means better memory, increased creativity, sharper concentration skills, and a more rapid speed of learning. Our guest is Dr. Majid Fotuhi, the internationally recognized neurologist, science writer, and medical commentator.

Not only is there more and more debate --- and more policy, and more politics, and more "red tape" --- about health care these days, there's also much more journalism. On this edition of SToH, guest host John Henning Schumann speaks with Gary Schwitzer, who's been active in the field of health care journalism for 40 years now.

We speak today by phone with Katy Butler, an accomplished journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, The Best American Science Writing, The Best American Essays, and The Best Buddhist Writing.

On this edition of ST on Health, we welcome Dr. Lamont Cavanagh, a Tulsa-based family physician who specializes in sports medicine, and who also works as an assistant professor at the OU-Tulsa School of Community Medicine. Moreover, Dr. Cavanagh spent five years as an U.S. Air Force flight surgeon, and he's now chief of aerospace medicine for the 138th Fighter Wing of the Oklahoma Air National Guard.

One of the sweeping changes going on in American health care today --- apart from the whole Affordable Care Act juggernaut --- is the gradual, incremental transfer from using "paper charts and files" to employing electronic health records (or EHRs). EHRs, as is noted at the HealthIT.gov website, "can provide many benefits for providers and their patients, but the benefits depend on how they're used.

On this installment of StudioTulsa on Health, we welcome Dr. Julie Silver, an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She's also a prolific medical author and blogger, and her books include "What Helped Get Me Through: Cancer Survivors Share Wisdom and Hope" (American Cancer Society) and "After Cancer Treatment: Heal Faster, Better, Stronger" (Johns Hopkins Press). But she's not just a cancer expert, she's also a survivor --- following her acute treatment for cancer while still in her thirties, Dr.

On this edition of ST on Health, guest host John Schumann presents an interesting conversation with the Augusta, Georgia-based physician, Dr. Rob Lamberts, who writes a popular medical blog called "Musings of a Distractible Mind" --- and who's also an expert on (and, indeed, a practitioner of) the so-called Direct Care method of health care. As Dr. Lamberts explains on his personal website, he left his longtime group practice in September of 2012 in order to "build a new solo practice, Dr. Rob Lamberts, LLC.